If the size of Earth were equivalent to a marble, then the size of the Sun would be comparable to a large yoga ball, and the largest star in the universe has a diameter that is hard to believe.
We all know that Earth is merely a grain of sand in comparison to the vast universe, but very few can truly envision the distances between such massive celestial bodies.
Assuming the diameter of Earth is 1 cm, equating to the size of a marble, the diameter of the Moon would be 0.27 cm. The sizes of Mercury, Mars, Venus, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, and Jupiter would respectively be 9.5 px, 13.25 px, 22.5 px, 100 px, 95 px, 235 px, and 275 px (1 px = 0.026458333 cm), where Saturn and Jupiter would be about the size of a tennis ball.
The largest star in the universe observed by humans is UY Scuti.
As the largest star in the solar system, the Sun has a diameter of 2750 px, nearly the size of a large yoga ball. You can imagine how vast the distance is between the marble and the giant yoga ball.
However, in the entire universe, the Sun is just a small star among countless others. Today, the largest star in the universe observable by humans is UY Scuti, a red supergiant star located in the constellation Scutum, with a diameter of 2.4 billion km, which is 1700 times the diameter of the Sun. Even light takes 133 minutes to travel from one end to the other.
This means that if UY Scuti were placed at the center of the Solar System, it would engulf the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and possibly even Jupiter. This illustrates the gigantic scale of this celestial body.
The absolute significance of UY Scuti places it in a class of its own, far surpassing other notable stars like Alpha Orionis (also known as Betelgeuse) in terms of absolute size.
The enormity of this supergiant star not only challenges our understanding of stellar evolution but also captivates the imagination of astronomy enthusiasts.
This offers us a clear perspective on the vastness of the universe and our place within it.
The formation of a star is a process whose exact beginning is unknown, but it starts from the dense, cold core of giant molecular clouds scattered throughout galaxies.
These clouds of gas and dust become the “nursery” for stars to form. This process occurs when regions within them collapse under gravitational forces, enabling nuclear fusion reactions to take place in the core.
However, this process is more complex for supermassive stars, as their formation may involve the merger of smaller stars and the accretion of material from their surrounding environment.
An image depicting the enormity of UY Scuti. (Image: Getty).
Of course, UY Scuti is not the largest object in the universe; we all know that the largest object is a black hole. The black hole designated SDSS J140821.67 + 025733.2 has a mass 196 billion times that of the Sun. If the diameter of Earth is 1 cm and the diameter of the Sun is 1 meter, then the diameter of this black hole would be 920 km.
We only know that the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years, equivalent to 200 million km, with a thickness of 12 million km. This length is comparable to the distance from Earth to the Sun. Therefore, if Earth takes one year to orbit the Sun, the ellipse formed is equivalent to that of the Milky Way.
Compared to the largest stars in the universe and the Milky Way, our Earth is incredibly tiny; however, it possesses all the necessary components for human existence.
